The idea developed in most cultures that a person is punished for his misdeed in the same way that he committed the misdeed. Slap someone and you will be slapped. Insult another and you will be insulted. In English, the notion is called “tit for tat.” In Hebrew it is midah keneged midah, “measure [...]
Rediscovering Philo of Alexandria, volume IV, Numbers By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel Rabbi Michael Leo Samuels has just published his fourth informative volume on the pioneer philosopher Philo, a volume is on the biblical book Numbers. He drew Philo ideas from a wealth of this philosopher’s exegetical comments and arranged them according to biblical [...]
The wisdom of Epictetus The truth is the truth no matter what its source. And Epictetus taught much truth worthy [...]
In my latest book, “Ruth, Esther, and Judith, I explain the two biblical books Ruth and Esther as well as the apocryphal book Judith, and compared them. Readers will find that a close reading of the three books shows that what they thought the books contain is not so. The following are a [...]
My friend Chaim Parchi sent me the following. It is a fascinating very informative narration for some 45 minutes of extraordinary finds in Jerusalem that prove the truthfulness of elements in the Torah. Http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/archaeological-findings-in-jerusalem-prove-the-bible-is-true/
"Ruth, Esther, and Judith” I just published two books “Ruth, Esther, and Judith” and “Jonah and Amos.” Both offer [...]
Descendants awarded for an ancestor’s deed Many Jews accept as true the somewhat mystical notion that the rewards for a person’s good deeds, if they [...]
Saadiah Gaon's The Book of Beliefs and Opinions Samuel Rosenblatt, who translated Saadiah Gaon's (882-942) philosophical classic The Book of Beliefs and Opinions into English [...]
I happened to pick up a volume of ArtScroll on a book of the Bible and saw that the authors relied on the chronologies of Jewish events contained in an ancient book called Seder Olam. While many Jews, including rabbis, consider the chronologies in Seder Olam as sacrosanct, as if they are true ancient rabbinic [...]
Some facts about fast days’ connection to seven The numbers seven and three occur well over a hundred times in Judaism, as do their combination [...]
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I recommend this film. It is a marvelous very moving portrayal of a heinous Nazi act that was perpetuated by the Austrian nation decades after World War II, of a persistent elderly woman, and a lawyer who gave up his livelihood to do what is just, an inspirational lawyer. The famed artist Gustav Klimt painted [...]
I think you will enjoy reading Israeli novels. The Lover by By A. B. Yehoshua is a good example. A. B. Yehoshua is one of Israel's top writers of fiction. For many he is somewhere among the top three. The Lover is his first novel originally published in Hebrew in 1977. [...]
Why wasn’t Miriam Kissed? While much in Judaism has been changed and improved, the way the Bible intended, [...]
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The following is from my friend, the scholar Rabbi Dr. Marc Angel. Shalom uvrakha, We all should be deeply distressed by the ongoing oppression of halakhic converts by Israel's Chief Rabbinate and its rabbinic courts. Already in 2006, the Chief Rabbinate began a process of undermining the status of Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora and [...]
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is named after the famed Johannes [...]
I received an email asking what is the origin of the name Jew. Here is my response. Shalom, When the Israelites broke into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom was called Israel, after the ancestor Jacob, who was also called Israel because he wrestled with men and even with God. He was not afraid to question [...]
A cute laugh or at least a giggle. I received this from a son-in-law and want to share it. During a visit to my doctor, I asked him, "How do you determine whether or not an older person should be put in an old age home?" "Well," he said, "we fill up a bathtub, then [...]
A questionable sermon Ever since the time of the sage Nachmanides (1194 – 1270), who introduced the notion that [...]
Shavuot: [...]
From my commentary on Ruth I completed my commentary of Ruth and it will be published within a couple of months. I [...]
The truth about the Counting of the Omer The ancient religious Jewish group Pharisees, who existed from about 320 BCE until 70 CE, and the rabbis who followed them changed [...]
Baruch Spinoza Borrowed His Basic Philosophy from ibn Ezra and Maimonides Non-Jews consider Baruch (or Benedict) de Spinoza an esteemed philosopher. Many feel that he breathed fresh air into philosophy and helped launch the open-minded enlightenment in the seventeenth century. Rebecca Goldstein, in her 2006 [...]
Is Rashi’s Bible Commentary Rational? Certainly Rabbi SolomonYitzchaqi (or Shlomo ben Isaac, 1040–1105), known by the acronym Rashi because of the initials of his name, is the [...]
The Israelites may not have known about Moses' Torah until around 620 BCE It appears that the Israelites knew nothing about Moses' Torah before a book of the Torah was found in the Temple around 620 BCE, a story told in II Kings 22. Scholars contend that there [...]
Why Do Rabbis Prefer the Shulchan Arukh over Maimonides’ Code of Law? Maimonides’ fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah was the first, most comprehensive, most readable, and best-organized code of Jewish law. It is no surprise, for example, that the fourteen books of his code are so expertly crafted [...]
